You promised yourself you would wake up at 6 a.m. to go jogging. It's 5:40, and the little devil talks sweetly in your ear and gives you reasons to close your eyes and fall asleep. Almost there. But here comes the shining angel saying, "Just do it," and you wake up.
The angel was sent by an amazingly effective and motivating ad campaign from Nike. But were there any rational (not emotional) principles that its creators followed? Sure.
Every paid marketing specialist has to remember three simple things when building an ad campaign.
If you still think that every effective ad sequence requires significant investment, you have a stereotypical attitude. Yes, ads convert, but spending aggressively on them doesn’t guarantee awesome performance and high conversions. A company can spend huge budgets on Facebook or LinkedIn campaigns, but the feedback will be third-rate.
Then, marketers change the copy, a designer makes more impressive banners (that cost you a fortune), maybe a marketer edits the list of accounts to target. But still—nothing.
So, it’s not about money. It’s all about being in the right place at the right time and delivering the right message to the right audience. For example, what's the sense of offering medicine to relieve colic in infants to a toddler’s mom, even if your ad creative stands out from the crowd? On the other hand, if you target users who want to go for a holiday in August with the simplest banner and a hyper-relevant offer, one well-planned, low-budget campaign can be enough to boost your sales.
So, a small budget is not an excuse for low conversions.
Otherwise, why market your products? And eventually –– why do business? If the conversions are always low and customers bring you less than you spend on attracting them every time, something went wrong. Always check the stats and KPIs like CPM, CTR, CPP, and GRP so you will be aware of how your ads perform.
Let's assume that you finally started collaborating with the top influencer in your industry. Now you think that his motivational speech will urge users to purchase your product. But what if the ad doesn't resonate with your target audience –– because it sounds weird, lacks personalization, or is addressed to the wrong users? It's just a waste of money. To avoid that, do research and keep investigating audience engagement and reaction.
Does the ad clearly state the value proposition? Is the CTA button identifiable, and is the message explicit? How do people feel when reading it and what is the overall effect of an ad creative? Is it inspiring, catchy, and relevant? If you don't measure these parameters permanently and polish your strategy in the necessary way, you’ll lose.
Okay, these principles sound fair, but how do you make ad campaigns outstanding? Here are the key questions you need to answer to make sure your ad campaign is efficient.
Before you start building an ad campaign, there's some homework to be done. Here are four questions –– challenging but straightforward –– that you have to answer in order to run an effective ad campaign.
Who is highly interested in your offer and who you will target?
Detailed targeting and segmentation are essential. Identifying those users who can potentially buy from you and want to do it is 25% of your success. Create your ideal customer profile (ICP) in detail, work on segmentation, research your target audience, and make sure you know who you will target.
What are you going to offer prospects?
Your ads should always be relevant, personalized, and engaging. Every single word and the visual element should resonate with the potential customers' needs and interests.
When should you launch your ad campaign?
If you collected the client base one month ago, don't expect that these leads will positively react to your offer today. It really depends on the products or services you offer. Most people from your contact base may have already found the solution and no longer need you. That's why the trigger event should not be too old. React quickly!
What channel should you choose to launch your ad campaign?
Make sure to identify the platform where your prospects are present regularly. In other words––the resource or social media where the target audience spends more than 5 minutes before going to sleep. Remember that embracing every existing channel is expensive and unnecessary.
Wrapping Up
You don't have to spend thousands on an ad campaign to get high returns. If you analyze statistics and do research to trace what works best with your audience, your ad campaigns will be effective and will pay off.
However, identifying the hyper-targeted audience and understanding its needs as well as building decent ad creatives requires a lot of time and effort, if done manually. Luckily, in 2021 there are plenty of decent instruments that can automate every task in this way: ICP building, audience collection, ad generation, and posting to various platforms.
Moral: reach the right people with the right message through the right channel at the right time. And automate!
Good luck!
